S&P Publishes Value "Judgments"

December 15, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Standard &
Poor's announced Friday the results of its semi-annual
changes to several of its indexes, notably the designation of
stocks as either "growth" or "value" within those
gauges.

With respect to categorization of a stock as either
“growth” or “value,” S&P noted that the discriminating
attribute of each stock was its book-to-price ratio. Using
this metric, each index is split into two mutually
exclusive sets, each of which comprises roughly half of the
index’s total market capitalization, according to
S&P.

“Book” Look

Each S&P/Barra Value Index contains stocks with
higher book-to-price ratios, whereas each S&P/Barra
Growth Index includes stocks whose book-to-price ratios are
lower. Like the parent indices from which they are derived,
the growth and value indices are market
capitalization-weighted, according to S&P.